On June 20, 1994, I killed someone. Bear in mind that it wasn't on purpose, and you as the reader can handle that as you wish. I'll never forget that night, I don't think I ever will. There are nights when I lay awake and hope to get amnesia, hoping that it will purge my mind of the event that forever changed my life.

I was twenty years old, and on my way to my friend Joel's house for a night of video games. Joel had been my best friend since the third grade, and we had a full night of SNES on our minds. I was set on showing him Doom II, and he was set on a whole night of Street Fighter II Turbo. I stopped by the Taco Bell down the street from his house for a pack of both soft and hardshell tacos. As you can imagine, my order was pretty big, large enough for the drive-thru employee to tell me to park out front and wait as they got everything made. I was sitting out front for about ten minutes, and I considered going in to see if there was a problem. I knew my order was big, but ten minutes was pushing it, didn't they have a stockpile of tacos ready to go? I could see into the dining room and it wasn't that busy. I was on the verge of getting out of my car when a man walked up and tapped my window. He didn't look homeless, there were a good amount of homeless people around Joel's house, and this guy didn't quite fit the bill. He looked like a disheveled middle-aged man, the kind of had maybe fallen onto a life of drugs and alcohol.

I waved him off, he didn't seem threatening, but I had no interest in engaging. I watched from my mirrors as he continued to stumble around the parking lot, unsure of where he needed to go. The strange little encounter didn't shake me by any means, but it was more than enough to keep me in my car and make sure the doors were locked. After all, I'd waited ten minutes, I could wait more for my platter of tacos. Those next few minutes were the definition of torture. I remembered cursing that Taco Bell as well as scratching it off my list of fast food places within my area, three minutes went by, but it may as well have been another ten. Eventually, the man came back but this time he knocked on my passenger-side window. I'm not sure if it was the lighting or the angle at which he was standing, but he looked...creepier. As though his walk around the parking lot had taken him from his mid-forties to his mid-fifties. He did look homeless upon this second viewing, but not only did he look homeless, he looked dangerous.

At that point, I considered the tacos a loss. Joel would understand, he'd have to and when I got to his place we'd figure out an alternative for food. The man staring into my window gave me the creeps, I could feel my skeleton wanting to jump out of my skin. I gave the Taco Bell one last look, still hoping to see an employee push through the double doors with my order, but I didn't see a single soul. And then the man fumbled with the passenger door. I put my car in reverse and backed away, I can still hear the screech of my brakes.

It's the strangest thing. I started by saying that I'd never forget that night, but to this day I'm not sure how much of the actual night I remember. Twenty years have gone by and I still don't know if I'm remembering the actual event, or piecing fragments together from the following days, my court case, and everything in between to form some sort of mashup of what actually happened. A Frankenstien's monster of memories. I remember driving over something when I backed the car up, I didn't know what it was, but I didn't think it was the guy. I think my first thought was that there was something wrong with my car. Joel was the first one to see the blood on the passenger side of my car, and that's when I realized I was fucked.

Turns out the man wasn't homeless, but a father of four with dementia. I'd always heard stories of people feeling their blood run cold in tense situations, and that's what it felt like when I'd heard he was a dad. It felt like I was freezing from the inside, I couldn't speak, and I couldn't breathe. I'll never forget the images of the man that were shown to me by forensics and the coroner during my court case. The images of that man are tattooed onto my brain and it kills me. I'll never forget the looks from that man's children and his wife during my hearing. His kids winced every time the judge spoke my name, I wish that was an exaggeration, but it's not. I'll never forget the sound my mom made when the judge gave me twenty years. My parents were the only ones who cried for me that day.

I'm not going to get into the prison life here. I've written countless memoirs (I guess? If you want to call them that), throughout the last twenty years and maybe I'll post those on the internet, but probably not. All the stories are true, maybe exaggerated here and there, but true nonetheless. I guess if I had to say anything about prison? The food wasn't that bad, I don't think I can stress that enough.

It's going to take a while to get used to the world in 2024. Everything is too fast and easy. Everyone is so open with their lives and I find that weirdly unsettling. There were modern televisions and video game consoles in prison, but it's weird having so much at your fingertips at any given time. I don't like it, but maybe I'll sing a different tune in a few months. I just think the world is too open now and that's what trips me out the most, it's like privacy is a thing of the past.

Mom was the only one to welcome me with open arms. Dad would have too, but he passed away about eight years into my sentence. That's always going to sting for me, that I couldn't be there with him in his last moments. Everyone else in my family gives me smiles and hugs, tip-toeing around what happened like they're walking over glass. The smiles are so fake but it is what it is. They all say I look good, and I have no idea what that means. How do I look good? What would I look like if I went through my twenties and thirties like a normal person?

About a week ago I saw Joel at a Whole Foods with his wife and two kids. He looks good for his age, and his family looks great. I know he recognized me, he did one of those double takes where he saw me, looked away, and then looked back to see if I saw him. I didn't engage and I think it was a mixture of being scared and not wanting to converse. What was I going to talk about? My time in prison? Boast about how I was relieved the judge only gave me twenty years because it was an accident? Drone on about how I thought the world is weird now? It's fine, I wish Joel and his family well.

And Joel, if you ever read this...

How about another round of Street Fighter II Turbo?